Monster Fountain on the Plaza!

Well, I'm still painting rooms in my house, so nothing current to post. So I thought I'd reach back into the archives and show you this little oddity from February, 2010. It's one of my entries into a goofy photo contest from CREATUREBOX, a fun website by two incredibly talented artists, Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin. The idea was to assemble a little cardboard monster "paper toy" they designed, called "Thorndyke", then put him into crazy locations. I didn't win any of the prizes, but I had fun anyway.

So here's the original location on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City.

Here are the monster parts...took about two hours to build...way longer than I expected.

And here's the little guy all put together. The wire was to help me get the "one-footed-tip-toe" pose I needed. With a little Photoshop magic...voila! A new fountain for Kansas City!

UPDATE! Thanks to my nephew's eagle eye, I was made aware that I had forgotten to add one other source photo for this image. I borrowed the water spray that comes out of Thorndyke's mouth from a photo of another famous KC fountain. I can't detect exactly what bits I used...I'm sure I "cloned" parts that I liked and moved things around to make it work. Thanks, Christopher!

SKETCHBOOK - "Life Drawing Afternoon"

A little over a week ago, I went to one of the figure drawing sessions that are provided for artists at Hallmark Cards once a month. I really hesitated to post these drawings...it's been FOREVER since I've gone to a life drawing session, and I felt REALLY RUSTY!!! By the time it was over though, I knew I'd have to go again, because I've always loved drawing the human form.

First there were some 5 minute warm-up sketches. I didn't plan my time well on these...should have been looser.

Then we had a few 10 minute poses. I was a bit frustrated by not being sure of what materials to use. I bounced from sepia pencils to graphite, with white pencil for highlights...toned brown paper, then to white.

Next were two 20 minute poses. I had wanted to try laying down a mid-tone over the paper, then lifting out highlights with a kneaded eraser. I had not, however, prepped my paper beforehand with graphite, or with charcoal...so scribbling on the paper didn't really work as well as I wanted.

Finally, we had a 15 minute pose. I was pleased with this drawing...finally started to feel like I could get back into this figure drawing thing. It was also a challenge using a larger piece of paper and an easel, instead of my sketchbook. All in all...a good 3 hours break from my regular workload.

I leave you with a photo of my current "assignment"...painting several rooms in my house. Not nearly so fun.

SKETCHBOOK - "Another ZOO Day"

Yesterday, I decided I needed to get out of the house and go do something fun. "Hey, I'll go to the ZOO and draw animals!" I said to myself. By the time I got there, it really never dawned on me that a lovely sunny Memorial Day would also inspire a couple of thousand other folks to get out of the house and go do something fun. Not being a "people person" (especially a "huge crowds of people" person), I sighed...and went about my adventure anyway.

Above is one of my favorite critters...the beautiful WARTHOG! I love every bump, tusk, and gnarly thing about these guys. Took a while to get this sketch locked down...he kept getting up, walking away, then back again to lay in the sand.

I decided to walk in reverse order from my last visit to the zoo in July of '09 (Check my labels on the right of this blog for other zoo sketches). So I went straight over to the AFRICA area, and warmed up with a few poses of some baboons.

Around the corner were these multi-colored African hunting dogs...but they weren't hunting. They were sleeping...so I let them lie...as the old saying instructs us to.

Found my way over to the Crocodile House, where I took note of this guy's camouflage. Did you know that if you sit quietly in a zoo, minding your own business drawing a crocodile, that several children will soon be crawling all over you, to watch? I had forgotten this little detail about zoo sketching...happened almost every place I stopped to draw. It was okay, though...I decided it was good training for my soon-to-be-a-Grandpa status, come September.

This underwater view above was right up next to the glass enclosure...the croc hoping to make a quick snack of one of those curious children watching me draw. Here are some of the questions I was pummeled with while drawing: "What are you doing?" "Are you an artist?" "Did you draw that from scratch?" (I told him, "Yep...no tracing here!)

And my personal favorite question of the day was from a very loud teenage girl looking over my shoulder as I was drawing the hippo below: "Are you drawing that?" (as I am literally "drawing that" while she watched.) I just turned around with a huge grin of disbelief on my face, and said nothing.

The little rhino sketch above was disappointing, in that the beast kept eating and moving around. So I just managed a quick little thumbnail drawing.

It was almost closing time, when I came up on the elephants enjoying their evening meal. I thought, great...they'll stand still for me! Wrong...I would do some sketching...pick up my gear, walk down the path...sketch a bit...pick up, move down, sketch, etc. The last drawing of this female was fun...I was captivated by her smiling face (between bites of hay), and the long girly eyelashes. It was a good day.